In the heart of Puerto Vallarta, I’ve been graced by the presence of women who do not age quietly. They embody art in motion—laughing louder, loving deeper, and wearing each year like paint upon canvas. This tribute is for them and for all who dare to age like fire E.Z.
Question
What if growing older
was not a decline
but a deepening?
What if these lines on our faces
were brushstrokes—
each one a signature
of survival,
of softness,
of strength?
What if being “over the hill”
meant we now had the view?
The Art of Being Old
is not about resistance—
it’s about remembrance.
It asks us
to become artists
of our own becoming:
to sculpt wisdom from memory,
to paint presence into every pause,
to compose courage
from the crescendo of our years.
It is not a performance—
though we may dance.
Not a product—
though we are
works of sacred design.
It is not youth
stretched longer.
It is life—
in its ripest form.
Fierce.
Funny.
Full of God.
In a world
that sells wrinkle creams
and menopause hush kits,
we are told:
“You are no longer desired.
No longer relevant.
No longer seen.”
But here we are.
Seen.
Here we stand—
luminous,
lived-in,
loud with knowing.
We are not old
despite being women.
We are artists
because we are women.
We carry the spiritual arts:
the art of being
when the world insists on doing,
the art of loving
without agenda,
the art of becoming
when culture tells us to disappear,
the art of knowing
what cannot be unknown.
The Art of Being Old
is a holy rebellion.
It is medicine—
not only for ourselves
but for a world
that has forgotten
how to honor
the wise.
This poem
is a toast,
a testimony,
a temple dance.
It is for every woman
who has felt erased,
dismissed,
diminished by time.
It is for the elders
who still burn
with brilliance.
It is for the younger ones
watching us—
longing to know
if there’s life
on the other side of the hill.
And in Puerto Vallarta,
we say to them:
Claro que sí.
Yes, beloved.
There is life.
And it is art.
Answer.
The Last Great Art
We are taught to fear time—
to hide from the changing faces that we wear.
But aging is not undoing.
It is the final, fiercest masterpiece.
Each morning,
the earth paints a new sky—
then sets it on fire by nightfall.
The seas build themselves up,
only to bow down again to the shore.
The mountains stand tall,
but even they wear away,
grain by sacred grain.
Nothing in nature begs to be spared.
Nothing clutches the past.
The falcon falls,
the river dries,
the oak splinters—
and still, they are beautiful.
The stars themselves—
those architects of time—
collapse into silence without a cry.
Because to exist
is to vanish
and to shine anyway.
And you—
you were never meant to be fixed,
perfect,
untouched.
You were meant to be worn smooth by wonder.
You were meant to be reshaped by storms,
weathered by love,
mended by sorrow.
Your scars are brushstrokes.
Your laugh lines are songs written in skin.
Your trembling hands hold the wisdom of mountains.
Your eyes—
dear God, your eyes—
they have seen the sun rise and fall
more times than they can count,
and they still dare open.
This—
is no accident.
This—
This is the final masterpiece.
We are not here to outlast the stars.
We are here to become art in our ending.
To ripen into full colour.
To burn through all illusion.
To offer the world the only thing
it cannot keep:
our living, breathing, defiant selves.
If the flower returns to earth,
if the river returns to sky,
if the seagull falls into the hush of air—
Then let us too return,
not with fear,
but as the final,
boldest stroke
on the great canvas of life.
Aging—
is not undoing.
It is the last great art.
